Your Scrumhalf Connection - Women's Rugby Blog

Keystone vs ORSU 25 to 15 almost full time...

The Austin Valkyries are in the Little Rock Tourney final against the St. Louis Sabres...so scores will be a little late this afternoon.

Does anyone have the D2 scores from yesterday? Leave it in the comments!

Beantown Defeats New York!

17 to 17 at the last minute...Beantown's flyhalf Kelly Shear drop goals to win!

ORSU vs Philly 41 to 24
Keystone vs Atanta 15 to 5
Amazons vs Berkeley 5 to 30
New York vs Beantown 17 to 20

Yes, USA Rugby is having serious problems handling the demand on their servers. I am watching the Keystone game but it is pausing and skipping all over the place. Maybe they will correct the problem before the more games happen this afternoon.

Hopefully it will work! And hopefully USA Rugby will realize that no one is watching the games because their stream sucks.

This is the most current note from USA Rugby:
"Due to some unexpected server problems, USA Rugby's website is experiencing technical difficulties! We are working quickly to fix the problem. But, if you are trying to view the webcast of this weekend's Women's Club Championships, click here, in the meantime! Your patience is greatly appreciated!"

Scores:
ORSU vs Philly 41 to 17 (games almost over)

Keystone vs Atlanta 8 to 0 (halftime)

I don't know if anyone has heard, but I am hoping that USA Rugby allows us to "download" the games or at least the target link because I will be at the Little Rock tournament all weekend and will have very limited internet access.

If they do allow it to be archived or accessible later, I have figured out a way to download it onto my computer. I did it the other day with the Glendale film when we played Glendale, so I know it will work...but I will need the link.

So tomorrow we don't leave until like noon, so I can get the first couple of games and I will try to upload them in portions so you can download them too. Check back tomorrow morning and pass the word if I am successful!

Wish me luck!

Watch the USA Rugby Women's Club Championships live this weekend on www.usarugby.org

BOULDER, Colo. – USA Rugby has announced today its plans to broadcast the Division I Senior Women’s Club Championships, held at Sylvan Lake Park in Sanford, Fla., on November 9-11, 2007, live on its website - www.usarugby.org.

The championships will showcase eight of the top women’s club teams from across the nation, which advanced from the original field of 16 at the Division I Playoffs held in Austin, Tex., on October 28-29.

The elite eight includes the defending champions New York, Beantown, Minnesota’s Twin City Amazons and the Berkeley All Blues, all vying for the 2007 title, with Philadelphia’s Keystone Women, the Atlanta Harlequins, the Oregon Sports Union (ORSU) and the Philadelphia Women facing off for consolation honors.

The event also provides an important venue for Women’s National Team selectors to spot talent for future camps and international play.

“With the beginning of each new cycle comes the need to identify talent from as many sources as possible,” Women’s National Team Coach Kathy Flores said, “Although the National All-Star Championships and now our Can-Am event serve as our highest level avenues for identification, the Senior Club Championships also present opportunities for players who have not been identified before or those returning to play to be seen.”

All of Friday's championship matches, which will kick off at 10 a.m. and run through approximatley 5 p.m. (EST), will be broadcast live. Broadcast will resume early Sunday morning, commencing at 9 a.m. and leading up to the championship match at 1 p.m. USA Rugby will broadcast every game but the seventh/eighth place match on Sunday, as that is to be played on another field.

The broadcast schedule is as follows:

Friday, November 9

1. Consolation bracket 10:00 am: Philadelphia v ORSU
2. Consolation bracket 11:45 pm: Keystone v Atlanta Harlequins
3. Championship bracket 1:30 pm: Twin Cities Amazons v Berkeley All Blues
4. Championship bracket 3:15 pm: New York v Beantown

Sunday, November 11
5/6 Place 9:00 am: Winner Game 1 v Winner Game 2
3/4 Place 11:00 am: Loser Game 3 v Loser Game 4
CHAMPIONSHIP 1:00 pm: Winner Game 3 v Winner Game 4

To start watching the best Women's Club Rugby has to offer, click on the Watch Rugby Live logo on the main page of www.usarugby.org on Friday and Sunday, and ENJOY!!!

From Katie (USA Rugby Representative):

She didn't want me to paste and cut her email...so I will just make something up!

Looks like USA Rugby will be broadcasting certain matches from this weekend's upcoming USA Rugby Women's D1 Club Championships in Florida. See below for the matches scheduled for the D1 and the D2 tournament, held at the same times and in the same state! Good stuff!

Stay tuned for more information or check it out for yourself at USA Rugby.

Matchups November 9-11 Kissimmee, Fla.

Cup Semifinal: New York v. Beantown
Cup Semifinal: Berkeley v. Twin Cities

Plate Semifinal: Keystone v. Atlanta
Plate Semifinal: ORSU v. Philadelphia



Host: Orlando WRFC , Orlando FL
Date: November 10/11, 2007
Tournament Director: Keith Station

Saturday:
Game 1 - Nova II versus Naples / Coconut Grove
Game 2 - Scioto Valley versus Albany
Game 3 - Village Lions versus Orlando
Game 4 - Detroit versus Harrisburg
Game 5 - Winners game 1 play Winners game 2
Game 6 - Losers game 1 play Losers game 2
Game 7 - Winners game 3 play Winners game 4
Game 8 - Losers game 3 play Losers game 4

Sunday
Game 9 - Losers game 6 play losers game 8 for 7th/8th place
Game 10 - Winners game 6 play Winners game 8 for 5th/6th place
Game 11 - Losers game 5 play losers game 7 for 3rd/4th place
Game 12 - Winners game 5 play Winners game 7 for 1st/2nd place

For more information contact: info@wdiirugby.org

Last year’s effort was a great success thanks to all the volunteers that participated. The United States Women’s Rugby Foundation is once again coordinating volunteers to lend a hand with the ongoing recovery effort in New Orleans.

The New Orleans Rugby Recovery Effort is a volunteer opportunity to spend two days working side by side with other volunteers to help clean up and rebuild homes in the New Orleans area. We will be organizing volunteers for the New Orleans Habitat for Humanity and will assist on one or more of their ongoing projects. Projects will include both the construction of new homes and repair of surviving homes. We have selected the dates of this volunteer effort to coincide with the Mardi Gras Women’s Rugby Tournament.

* Volunteer Group Name: U.S. Women’s Rugby Foundation
* Dates: January 30th to February 1st, 2008 (arrive Wednesday PM, depart Friday PM or Saturday AM)
* Transportation to New Orleans: Responsibility of volunteer
* Food and Lodging: Camp Hope; $ 20.00/day tax deductible - responsibility of volunteer

If you would like to volunteer please send an email to mholmes@uswrf.org. She will contact you for additional information.

PLEASE NOTE: Volunteers will be asked to sign a Liability Waiver Form in New Orleans. Volunteers under the age of 18 cannot stay at Camp Hope but can volunteer with Habitat for Humanity. They will need guardian's consent to participate at the HFH worksite.

Girls Rugby has arrived in TEXAS! This weekend (11-3-2007) Traci and I from Austin and Alena and Leslie from Houston traveled to Dallas to do a girls youth clinic. The event was held at Jesuit High School which has THREE boy's high school teams and you can take rugby as a course!!!

These boys don't even know how lucky they are, state of the art facilities to practice at (TURF STADIUM) a coaching staff and playing rugby counts towards their GPA. How freaking awesome is that? So we are trying to slowly start the same thing in Dallas, Austin and Houston.

We had about 12 girls at the clinic and we had them from 9am to 3pm. We started them out easy in the morning with a small sharks and minnow game of touch. After they tagged someone they had to hold hands and start working together to get the rest of the girls. Then we moved into a stretching and dynamic warm up with all the girls. They did well and were excited to be doing something besides static stretching I think.

Then we moved onto pop passing, posting and picking the ball and even ball lines! These girls were like sponges, they soaked up everything we said! After each session we tried to do a question and answer and they were able to answer every question and it was just amazing. Before lunch we decided to get tackling out of the way. We were all a little worried that they would be afraid to this, but they jumped right in! We started on our knees and talked about proper placement of your face, neck, hands shoulders etc. They loved watching us tackle each other and kept asking us to do it again and again.

Then we moved to tackling a tackling bag and they did very well! They were hesitant to use their hands though and we kept emphasizing how important hands are in a tackle. After they mastered the bag I got in a tackle suit and let the girls hit me a couple of time each. We also changed the tackling bag to a rucking pad as they were just hitting and bouncing off me now. We noticed again that they were not using their hands so we introduced the rucking pad so they could grab a leg or shorts or whatever they wanted. Overall I was very satisfied by the tackling progress they made and some of those girls could hit hard!

Then we broke for lunch and had some chatting times with the girls. They were very cute and giggly and were very excited to be learning rugby! They wanted to scrimmage (full on tackle) so badly, but we just didn't feel safe yet. We still had plenty of rugby to cover, so we decided that if they did well we would do a touch session at the end of the day.

After lunch we worked on scrums and line outs with the girls. We again thought they would be adverse to the "touching" that comes with scrumming and rugby. But those girls dove right in and were giving each other their waistbands and scrumming it up! We were able to put together a full scrum and they even drove the scrum machine a bit! The lineout session was really cute as the girls don't have very much upper body strength yet. Alena and Traci tried to choose the smallest girls for lifting and taught everyone how to lift. At the end they lifted each girl so they could feel what it felt like to be lifted properly. It was very cute!

Next we worked on more ball lines with switches (they picked it up FAST!), looping and crashes. Everything we did was oriented to be a pop pass as we did not think teaching a spin pass would be good on the first day. This is more of an advanced skill and can take some players years to develop. From there we moved to a quick defensive drill, drumming into their heads that rugby defense is together, flat and harder than it looks. This was a short drill as we were running out of time, so we quickly did that and then we moved into the touch drill.

We knew the touch game would be hard to do, so we decided to make it as simple as possible. Alena and I played scrumhalves for the teams after we had split them up and strictly held ourselves to directing and not trying to show off! We had several stoppages over the hour we played touch, some for directions, some for questions...and some for stopping dangerous play.

The touch quickly improved as we introduced more concepts and encouraged them to take the tag and to move quickly into position. They had problems with aligning correctly and at the right distance, so we made sure to encourage those that were doing it right.

The clinic was a huge success and the girls were very cute at the end because they did a cheer for us! Union Rugby and the Rugby Foundation had donated balls, so each girl was able to take a rugby ball and a tshirt home! How exciting!

Traci and I are looking forward to hosting our clinic in Austin on Dec 1st and helping Alena & Leslie with their clinic in Houston on Dec. 15. Stay tuned for flyers, details etc on those camps.

For more information please email the us @ girlsrugbytx@gmail.com.

England Tour Roster Announced

11.2.07 - US Women's National Coach Kathy Flores announced her traveling squad of players for a three match tour in England in December. Flores said, "This tour is the beginning of the new World Cup cycle. As a few players from the last cycle wanted to take time to pursue other interests, it has become an opportunity to work with different athletes, many who have come through our programs. .

We have selected players we believe are coachable, mentally tough and are willing to do their part for the team. These are the things we cannot teach and are so important to a team coming together and performing at their best. Coaches Bryn Chivers (U20, previously U19) and Barb Fugate (USA A, previously U23) have done excellent work preparing these athletes to enter into the Senior program and for the first time, we are seeing a player that has participated in all three programs in one year, Kati McCormack. This will be the first taste of Senior level rugby for more than a few players and it's important to test ourselves against the best early in our cycle."

Flores noted that, "we will be playing a very ambitious schedule of 3 matches in 11 days and I expect the learning curve to be very fast if we are to fare well. Most of all, it is a chance for us to see where we stand one year after World Cup 2006 with a young, fairly inexperienced, yet talented, squad."

England Tour Roster

* Stacey Baker, Prop (Philadelphia)
* Emilie Bydwell, Center (Brown Univ)
* Jamie Burke, Prop (Berkeley)
* Lisa Butts, Hooker (Berkeley)
* Meg Crapster-Pregont, Flyhalf (Cornell Univ)
* Liz Dilley, Number Eight (DC Furies)
* Farrah Douglas, Prop (Chicago North Shore)
* Carrie DuBray, Prop (New York)
* Ashley English, Fullback (Berkeley)
* Blair Groefsema, Fl/No. 8 (Berkeley)
* Heather Jennings, Prop (Seattle)
* Mel Kanuk, Center (Maryland Stingers)
* Ashley Kmiecik, Fullback (Emerald City Mudhens)
* Lynell Kugler, Center (Glendale)
* Jaime Lange, Lock (Glendale)
* Kim Magrini, Scrumhalf (Keystone)
* Nathalie Marchino, Wing (Berkeley)
* Kati McCormick, Lock
* Vanesha, McGee, Wing (Philadelphia)
* Sara Merritt, Number 8 (San Diego Surfers)
* San Juanita Moreno, Center (ORSU)
* Jillion Potter, Number 8 (New Mexico Univ)
* Beckett Royce, FL/Lock (ORSU)
* Melissa Smit, Center/Fullback (Stanford Univ)
* Jossy Tseng, Flyhalf (Stanford Univ.)
* Shaina Turley, Flanker (San Diego Surfers)
* Mari Wallace, Hooker (Berkeley)
* Rose Whitmore, Scrumhalf (Berkeley)
* Kristin Zdanczewicz, Flanker (Minnesota Valkyries)

Reserves

* Mel Denham, Flanker (Beantown)
* Allyson Hemstreet, Flanker (Berkeley)
* Katy Hertel, Scrumhalf (Minnesota Valkyries)
* Jenny Kuchar, Wing
* Sara Leary, Fullback (Cleveland)
* Rachel Muir, Wing/Fullback (Keystone)
* Kitt Wagner, Flanker (Beantown)
* Maura Weikman, Fullback/Wing (New York)
* Sheara Williamson, Wing (Philadelphia)
* Wendy Young, Scrumhalf (Austin Valkyries)

**I tried to update all the players teams, but couldn't find some of them...feel free to leave it in the comments.

This trip is costing each player over $1500, to make a donation directly to the team, go here and specify Women's National Team.